Police in North Carolina are investigating the dying of Mica Miller, the spouse of Pastor John-Paul Miller of Strong Rock at Market Widespread in Myrtle Seashore, South Carolina, who was discovered with a bullet wound to her head at Lumber River State Park in Robeson County final Saturday as her widower comes below a barrage of suspicion on-line.
Main Damien McLean of Robeson County Sheriff’s Workplace informed ABC15 Information that officers are gathering info from individuals who knew the late 30-year-old pastor’s spouse to know how she died.
Final Sunday, simply hours after her physique was discovered, Pastor Miller introduced to his congregation in a viral video that his spouse died by suicide although investigators haven’t but confirmed an official reason for dying.
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“After the announcement, I’m going to ask that you leave church quietly and don’t talk about the announcement here in the building, please, if you can,” he mentioned.
“My request to you is that you continue to come to church and serve for the next little bit because … I’m taking a little bit of a break, and I don’t want to have to worry about the church. My break may be a few days, or a few weeks. I don’t know,” he mentioned.
“I got a call late last night. My wife has passed away. Yeah, it was self-induced and it was up in North Carolina,” he added, noting {that a} funeral might be held for her on the church at 3 p.m. on Could 5.
“I’m just kind of going on adrenaline right now, so y’all pray for my kids and everybody. Y’all knew she wasn’t well mentally, and she needed medicine that was hard to get to her and so, I’m sure there’ll be more details to come so just keep our family in your prayers.”
Some members of Mica Miller’s household, like her sister Sierra Francis, rapidly rejected the concept she had killed herself and advised she was abused.
“There is a lot of talk already going on, so I want to set the record straight. Our sister Mica Miller passed away yesterday. Please do not listen to false stories being shared about her,” Francis famous on Fb.
“Mica was a God-fearing, joyful, loving woman who did not deserve the abuse she endured. If you hear anything about this from anyone other than her family please question it, reach out to her siblings or parents. Keep our family in your prayers and if you have any information that needs to be shared, please contact one of us. Please respect us in this time and honor her memory with joy that she is no longer suffering. #justiceformica.”
Hypothesis about Mica Miller’s dying has unfold like wildfire on social media. Some critics brazenly questioned why Pastor Miller was within the pulpit hours after his spouse’s dying.
Court docket data cited by The New York Submit present that Mica Miller filed for divorce from her husband in October 2023, however the causes weren’t said. The case was finally dismissed in February, however a number of days later Pastor Miller filed for “Separate Support and Maintenance” searching for monetary assist. Mica Miller would file for comparable assist in April. A listening to was scheduled for June 5.
In an interview with The Christian Submit on Friday, Pastor Miller admitted that his relationship with Mica started with adultery. He mentioned they have been each beforehand married and cheated on their spouses, and many individuals left his church, forcing them to begin over. He mentioned he and Mica obtained married in 2017. Shortly after, she underwent surgical procedure for an undisclosed motive and was identified with “bipolar II, schizophrenic and dependent personality disorder.”
Since 2017, says Pastor Miller, they’ve been making an attempt to handle his spouse’s psychological sickness with lithium, and important assist. So long as she took her medicine, Pastor Miller mentioned, his spouse can be effective. Mica, nonetheless, had a curler coaster relationship with the medicine.
He recalled how she would complain how the medicine would make her acquire weight or trigger her to slur. And earlier this 12 months, the spouse of a well-meaning pastor good friend who had no understanding of psychological sickness provided to hope and imagine that Mica Miller’s psychological sickness would go away. That incident, he mentioned, caught with Mica and he or she began to imagine that she now not wanted the medicine.
“I took care of her through every time she went to the mental institute. I took care of her every time she stopped taking her lithium. I would never expose this stuff of her if I didn’t have to now, but every time she tried to kill herself, I would be there. I would literally sometimes pick her up physically put her in the truck, take her to the [hospital],” Miller mentioned with a slight crack in his voice.
The pastor mentioned he took his spouse to probate courtroom a number of weeks in the past to get her hospitalized, however the courtroom said that she wasn’t a hazard to others so she couldn’t be pressured.
“Nobody believed me when I told them that she was having a psychotic break. She would have never left. She would have never done what she did. They wouldn’t believe me. I have 48 text messages that I sent out saying she needs her lithium; somebody help me please. And no one believed me,” the grieving pastor mentioned.
“Everybody thought I was a demon for trying to take her to probate court and get her put in a hospital. I told her family, I have text messages, over and over, I told her family she needs her medicine. They told me I’m crazy. She doesn’t need any medicines. I text messaged her, but they sent her saying, it makes you fat or it makes you slur. Or you shouldn’t take your meds, or you just need something holistic, you don’t need what the doctors say.”
Although there have been some issues that Pastor Miller mentioned have been mentioned together with his church, the depths of his battle together with his spouse’s psychological sickness felt fairly lonely at instances.
“Nobody believed me. Nobody understood mental illness. She was diagnosed by the doctors for the past seven years as … bipolar II, schizophrenic and dependent personality disorder. And I was with her every time she thought she was seeing aliens. I was with her every time she thought artificial intelligence was after her. I was with her through everything, and the last psychotic episode she had, she didn’t know who I was,” he defined.
“She thought that I was the enemy somehow. … Nobody believed me, everybody thought that she was just normal being herself, and nobody understood. With her mental illness, people understand that she can say a sentence that’s normal. In the very next sentence, she’d say, with the same cadence, the same tone, and it will be completely abnormal, which is why people didn’t understand.
“She’d say, I want to go make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And after that, I’m going to learn how to fly.”
The Rev. Charles Randall, Pastor Miller’s religious advisor and mentor, informed CP that “basically, social media is very wicked in saying things and lying about the situation, things that they are not aware of.”
He mentioned he has identified Miller for a very long time and was one among his academics in highschool. He additionally mentioned he had been counseling Mica and Pastor Miller since September 2023 and was not conscious of any abuse. He acknowledged that there was “a little bump in the road” throughout efforts to revive their marriage however didn’t disclose what that bump was.
“I live by the Holy Spirit of God. If God would lead me to remove him, I will do that. It has not happened at this time. As far as abuse, they are lying about that. There was no abuse,” Randall informed CP.
“As far as working with him, I’ve been working closely with them since last September on their marriage. They did have a little bump in the road, no abuse, and he was working on that. The marriage was in the process of being restored.”
Randall mentioned he was with Pastor Miller the evening he obtained the decision about his spouse’s dying, and regardless of what individuals considered his preaching final Sunday, he was “tore up.”
“He was very tore up when we got the news. I was with him on Saturday night when he received the news. Very, very, very, very, very, tore up over it because he loved his wife very much. If the naysayers would tell the truth, they would know how much he did and tried to please his wife,” Randall mentioned.
“The same people that are lying and saying he mistreated his wife, even the family members, he offered to pay for every family member to travel from wherever they are, wherever they live, to bring them here, pay for their accommodations, and take care of them to honor his wife during this time. And they are in the streets, some of them, I believe, lying about what he is doing,” he added.
Randall mentioned rumors on-line that the pastor has already began relationship usually are not true.
When requested why Mica Miller wished to depart her marriage, Randall mentioned Mica didn’t even inform him she was submitting for a divorce.
“She did not relay that to me,” he mentioned.
Randall additional famous that he couldn’t bear in mind the final time he endorsed the couple collectively and was by no means informed why Mica wished to finish her marriage.
Pastor Miller had promised to reply further questions from CP however famous that after speaking together with his legal professional he was suggested to not communicate additional as a result of he was getting dying threats.
Randall additionally famous protesters are anticipated at Mica’s funeral on Sunday.
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“Well bless their hearts.”
